


ωμέγα θερμότητα, άλφα πειθαρχία

by distractionpie



Series: 2018 Rarepair Challenge [5]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, I warned you if I got stuck I'd just pull something from the weird porn scraps folder, It's pretty smutty for a fic in which nobody actually bangs, M/M, i really don't know how to tag this, sexual fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:11:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: In which George's heat strikes unexpectedly and he reaches out to the one person he knows will hold out against the instinct to respond.





	ωμέγα θερμότητα, άλφα πειθαρχία

**Author's Note:**

> spawned by me musing on fuck-or-die/heat-fic/aliens-made-them-do-it trope family and how often refusal or resistance to the inevitable sex featured, usually in the guise of not wanting to take advantage, and I started wondering if the idea of the character who is male/alpha/dominant-coded exercising restraint wasn't as much a part of the draw of the trope for some people as the fucking, and then ended up with the notion of writing a fic where the absence of fucking was the whole focus of the 'pressured by forces outside their control to fuck' trope. still not sure if it makes any sense but i know what i was going for and I don't have anything else for this months rarepair

George knows the signs as soon as he starts to feel them. He ignores it at first, because he’s on suppressants and it’s the middle of a fucking war, but he knows what pre-heat feels like and when the symptoms don’t quit after a good night’s sleep (or as close as he can manage under the circumstances) he knew he was going to have to do something about it.

It’s not a _huge_ surprise, everyone knew heat suppressants weren't totally reliable and there was a risk of packs containing duds, it was one of the objections to having omegas in the field to begin with, but the army had shut that down with claims that their suppressants were far stronger and far better quality than homemade herbals or the ones that doctors subscribed to omegas who were trying to time their heats to their alpha’s convenience. They’ve worked just fine for George since joining up, he hasn’t heard any anecdotes about other omegas going into unexpected heats (and with the number of alphas that had been in the company when it had formed he’s certain that if there was even a hint of a rumour about an omega in heat they’d have been talking about it).

It’s still a problem.

He never prepared for the prospect of dealing with a heat while at war. After all, the army had claimed it would be a non-issue. More importantly, George had never gone through a heat completely alone.

He could try finding some place to sequester himself and just waiting for the heat to end, but he’s heard all the warning tales, of omegas who made themselves sick with thirst and hunger and cold, too deep in their heats to think about such things. At home he’d had family alphas to ensure his safety and family omegas to make him comfortable, but here his options were limited.  With his short heats, 2 or 3 days, instead of the week some people get, the physical damage of having nobody to take care of him would probably be minimal. But the war had already taken its toll and even a little bit of weakness might be too much.

In the absence of an alpha relative the obvious choice would be getting a friendly omega to take charge of making sure he didn’t neglect himself in his heat, but Lip was still getting over sickness and busy with his new duties, and George isn’t close enough with the few omega replacements for their presence to be comforting.

Anyway, having alphas around had always made his heats easier. He’d never been through a heat with an alpha before, he was unbonded and his family was traditional about that sort of thing, but in a small house he could always smell alpha guests on the other side of the wall and it helped.

When they’d begun, the company had been almost 50% alphas. They seemed well suited to war and so had better odds of making the cut for the paratroopers, but once they’d got into the field things had changed. Alpha casualty rates wildly exceeded those of betas and omegas combined, the instincts that had served them well in training going into overdrive when faced with the realities of combat. There weren’t many alphas left with the company now, and most of those were replacements he wasn’t sure he could trust.

And he’d rather shut himself away and ride out the heat alone than ask a beta for help -- normally George liked betas, but they didn’t understand the experience of being in heat or have the alpha pheromones that would take the edge off, making them the worst of both worlds, more an annoyance than a help when it came to issues of secondary-sex. Frank is the only beta George might have tolerated had he been around, but no, he’d had to get shot in the ass and whittle the ranks of George’s buddies even thinner.

He doesn’t want to sneak off and suffer alone though, and so he considers his prospects: untrustworthy alphas and strange omegas, dragging Lipton from his sick bed, attempting to explain what he needed to a beta who had no experience of heat or rut and couldn’t understand what it was like... He came to one conclusion. Most of the alphas who’d joined the company lately he’d be a fool to trust, but if there is one thing George has no reason to doubt, it’s Captain Speirs’ self-command.

He’s more controlled than any alpha George had ever met and reassuringly traditional, as evidenced by the way he’d been the picture of propriety in his dealings towards Lip, despite the fact that anybody with a nose could tell that Speirs had been interested in Lip ever since he joined the company at Foy. And although Speirs hadn’t made any gesture towards courting Lip yet and although an attraction he hasn’t acted on won’t make a difference to how George responds to him in the depths of his heat, it does make the prospect of asking easier. Lip is a close and trusted friend and he’d be George’s first choice under other circumstances, so if he was correct in his assumption that Speirs and Lip were going to be mated as soon as Speirs made the extravagant courting gesture that George had no doubt that he was planning then that made Speirs nearly as close, in a strange sideways-logic sort of way, and therefore an appropriate choice.

Fortunately they’re stopped in a town for the next few days which means that not only does George have options for easy places he can shut himself away and ride out his heat, but Speirs has his own temporary office and George doesn’t have to initiate this conversation with an audience.

It’s easy to find and he knocks twice and stands a little straighter than he usually would as Speirs calls enter and he pushes his way inside. Given what he’s about to say, it seems best that he seem as professional as he can; after all Speirs has never had a bad word to say about the presence of omegas in the field before now, but he’s also never had to deal with a problem like the one George is bringing him.

“Sir,” he greets.

“Luz,” Speirs says tersely, but then he looks up and his nostrils flare and his eyes widen, and oh, Speirs has a good nose apparently. Well, that will spare George some explaining. “You’re...”

“Yeah,” George says. There’s no point beating about the bush trying to be polite if Speirs can already smell the heat on him. “Apparently army issue suppressants aren’t quite as effective as advertised.”

“I...” Speirs sniffs more deliberately this time, and then frowns. “Who else knows?”

“Nobody yet, I think,” George says. He hopes. The last thing he needs is for some replacements to catch his scent and make trouble. “I only just started to feel it yesterday, I’d have reported it to Lip but...”

“He’s too sick,” Speirs says, the firmness of a commander and an alpha stacked up and making it clear that it would be unwise for George to change his mind and try and disturb Lipton’s rest even if he is George’s friend and Easy’s most senior omega. Not that George is having second thoughts now he’s facing down Speirs in all his intense glory.

“I know,” George says. He’s here because Lip isn’t in any state to help him. “I just need somewhere to go until it’s over.”

“There are other omegas and betas in the company who could monitor you, or...” Speirs trails off and George had known that he was the posher sort, college educated officer and all that, but it’s funny to think of Speirs has somebody high-society enough to feel the need to skirt around the scandalous but hardly unheard of suggestion that George could let an alpha see him through his heat the old-fashioned way.

“I was going to just wait it out,” George admits. “Mine are short enough that it shouldn’t be a problem, just so long as I have somewhere secure.”

An expression flits across Speirs’ face too fast for George to recognise as he says, “That’s not the recommended procedure.”

 _No, it’s not,_ George thinks, _But then again, there is a war on._ He bites that back. Speirs is the last person who needed that pointing out to him and it’s hardly his fault that George’s usual good humour is being worn away by his agitation at the inconvenience of his suppressants choosing now to fail and at the rather daunting prospect of going through heat alone.

“I can have a locked room arranged,” Speirs muses. “But your suggestion is unacceptable. Somebody will need to be the keyholder and have access to ensure you don’t go into a fever.”

Heat-fevers are rare and George doesn’t think he’s particularly at risk, his short heats mean that even if he did neglect himself entirely while wrapped up in the heat-haze he’d still be out of it before things got dangerously bad. Still, given the poor conditions the company has been in for the past few months George supposes this is a situation that might call for him being a little more health-conscious than he’d otherwise need to be.

“You’re the most senior alpha of the company,” he points out, although that position wouldn’t have meant shit to him if it had still been Dike occupying it. He didn’t come to Speirs just to end up getting himself delegated into the care of some stranger. “And Lip trusts you.”

George is good at reading people, you don’t get a reputation as the company comedian if you can’t judge people well enough to predict if a punchline will land or not, or any line, and he knows he has Seirs with that admission. If some replacement omega came to him just because he was the Captain then Speirs might brush them off to deal with their problem themselves or ask an NCO for help, but George is Lipton’s friend and Speirs clearly feels the same second-hand connection that made George decide to come to him in the first place.

“Do you have time for arrangements to be made?” Speirs says and George nods.

“A little while,” he can feel his heat beginning and if Speirs can smell him that means there’s a risk of other people noticing too and reacting, but it’s not that the point where George is impaired by it yet.

 

*

 

In the end it only takes Speirs a few hours to find somewhere suitable for George to wait out his heat. George had heard talk of his efficiency but seeing it in practise is another thing.

The location he’s secured is an attic room in the same building that Speirs’ office is in, which means the lock is going to be the least of the things keeping intruders at bay and it smells musty, like it hasn't been inhabited for a while, and even then probably only by betas with their light, neutral scents. It’s not idea for a heat but it’s better than he was expecting in the middle of a warzone.

It’s mostly been stripped bare but there’s a mattress on the floor in the middle, no pillows but a threadbare looking sheet is folded at the end. “Mattress and a blanket? Better than the Four Seasons,” George jokes, trying to take the edge of the situation’s discomfort. It is certainly better than some of the conditions he’s stayed in since the war, but his incipient heat makes it harder to think and he’s pretty sure his joke falls flat, at the very least, Speirs doesn’t seem amused.

“I’ll check in on you,” he says, in the odd stilted tone George has noticed he sometimes gets when he finds himself conversing rather than giving orders. “And I’ll ensure nobody else can come up.”

He’s out the door quickly after that and George would feel pity for the uncomfortable situation he’s put Speirs in, were his own situation not infinitely more uncomfortable.

As soon as the door locks he tugs off his boots just for comfort, and then strips out of his clothes as well. He can already feel the beginnings of slick starting to form and if any of it soaks through to the fabric the scent will be almost impossible to get out and as things are he’s unlikely to be issued with a replacement uniform but he can’t go back to the lines stinking of heat. Or, he could, but he imagines what the reaction would be and it isn’t pretty - everybody in Easy knows they’re required as soldiers to keep their instincts in check but it is a mixed company and walking around smelling of heat might be more disruptive than even army discipline can contain.

He can feel the itch between his legs that he knows will become an aching emptiness soon enough and as he curls up on the mattress, he knows there’s no use in fighting it but he just wants this over. George had never enjoyed his heats, being raised to believe that although attitudes to sex were getting more progressive and pre-bond sex wasn’t uncommon anymore, heats should still be reserved for his future bondmate and that meant every heat until then was an exercise in being unsatisfied. But at home he’d always been content enough to wait his heats out and take what pleasure he could from them; now, with occasional bursts of shelling audible from his window, he just feels helpless and exposed.

He’d scoffed at every suggestion that omegas weren’t suited for war when he’d heard them back home, all those sneering comments about distractions and camp followers and the natural delicacy of a good omega, and since landing in Europe George had mostly held fast to that believe because while there have been times when he has suffered and struggled it’s been no more than what alphas and betas have endured and he refuses to accept that omegas don’t have the strength to cope with what others can.

But now, for the first time, he falters. His instincts are crying out for safety and softness, it’s not just simple fear for himself but the knowledge that there are so many others out there, others who might not be his family but have grown oh so familiar in the time he’s spent with them, and in his vulnerability his instincts cry out for safety not just for himself but for all those he cares about. His heat is battling against the cold of France in winter, a climate that oughtn’t be so different to what he’s used to, except back home in winter he was always wrapped up in scarves and sweaters and in buildings that didn’t have holes from shelling.

Even with the cold, time starts to get blurry as his heat overtakes him and he’s not sure how long it is before Speirs walks in and George blinks, trying to work out of his temperature has somehow spiked high enough for hallucinations to set in, but no, that really is a large ceramic jug in his hands, painted with the most hideous floral pattern George has ever seen.

He pushes himself to a sitting position on the bed, tugging the sheet over himself because while the last thing he needs in heat is the extra warmth of being covered he’s still clear headed enough to feel awkward about the idea of being so exposed while talking to his captain.

Speirs seems unfazed though, he sets the jug down, unwinding his scarf before he pours out a mug of water and comes over to the mattress with it.

And something deep down in George tells him that Speirs’ alpha instincts are about to dictate he holds the mug to George’s lips but George isn’t quite that far gone yet and so he reaches out with his hands to catch the mug before Speirs can do so.

“Thanks,” he says, because however strange it might to have an alpha he barely knows around in this situation he is glad of the water and the surety that he’s being cared for and not just having to endure his heat burning through him until it’s over.

“I’ll check in every few hours,” Speirs says. “Heat fever is a big risk.”

It’s not, really. George has never had any serious problems in heat before, but he does appreciate the concern. Probably he should discourage Speirs from worrying, let him focus on doing what he ought to be doing which is leading the company but he’s a feverish mess of instincts and right now the knowledge that an alpha, that Speirs, is showing such care for him is a desperately needed balm against the ravages of his heat.

Speirs doesn’t linger, but he does leave his scarf sitting beside the jug of water and George knows he shouldn’t but he reaches out and snatches it, presses the scarf to his face. The thick alpha musk on it is comforting, George can feel his body responding to the strength of the scent. If he weren’t burning up with heat he might have reservations about it being Speirs’ scent and the way that scent will cling to him after this, but right now he can’t think of anything but how it takes the edge off the burn inside of him.

The flimsy few feet of fabric doesn’t offer any physical relief, but the reminder that there is an alpha close by and looking out for him draws some of the tension from George, makes it easier to let the heat flow through him instead of trying to fight it.

He rolls his hips idly against the mattress although he knows he’ll get no satisfaction there, it feels good but nothing can break a heat except the pheromones produced by a knotting alpha, if he tries to jerk off all he’ll get is chafing. Still, he’s never been one of those prudish omegas who tries to repress the natural urges that come with heat and there’s nothing dangerous about thinking about satisfaction.

George has felt more than a few sparks of potential since enlisting, lots of guys had taken an interest in one of the few omegas in the company, but none of those alphas had made any serious pursuit of him.

It’s the worst stereotype of an omega to think they lose all sense around alphas or close to heat. No matter who had been here George still would have had the sense to arrange a seclusion when he felt a heat coming on, he wouldn’t have risked being near any alpha who might pose an accidental bonding risk. But knowing that such a thing would never have been possible isn’t a deterrent to his imagination though and he lets himself imagine what it could have been like, if he’d had his choice of company alphas to see him through this.

The first prospect to come to mind is Bill. He was a shameless flirt, was always playing desperate to get a sniff of every omega around even though anybody who knew him could tell he was head over heels for his girl back home, but he’d have taken care of George if George had asked him, his lack of interest in bonding with anyone but his girl making him one of the safest choices. Then again, Bill would take great pride in getting his scent all over one of the company omegas, he wouldn’t take advantage but he would make a nuisance of himself bragging and baiting the other alphas with the fact that he’d been chosen over them to see George through heat and frankly Bill has never needed the ego boost. Perhaps not.

Anyway, in this fantasy George isn’t limited to safe choices, doesn’t have to worry about respectability or who is already bonded or the lingering risk that if he invited somebody too compatible to share his heat with him they’d both get carried away and end up rushing into an unplanned bonding.

There were guys like Buck, who went strictly for female omegas, but in his mind George could linger on the way if Buck were there his sheer size could press George down into this flimsy mattress and hold him there, cover him, shut out the world until the heat had run its course.

Or maybe Joe Toye with his broad shoulders and thighs, thick fingers to tease and a thick knot to satisfy. He always had a greater sense of humour than the others realised, too easily deceived by his stern countenance, but George imagines those attributes in combination, Joe too in control of himself to be easily caught up in George’s heat but instead laying back and challenging George to do the work and George would be happy to settle over him, legs either side of Joe’s broad hips and thighs and taunting him right back with rodeo jokes as he rode him.

The thoughts do nothing to keep the urges at bay though and soon George is at the point of desperation, fingers deep inside himself, he’s giving himself everything he’s got but it's not enough -- it's not a knot.

He feels empty, open but wanting. He needs more, but there's nothing in the room he can use, the place has been stripped bare but for the soft furnishings. At home he’d had a discreet supply of tools, toys really but in the name of decency they were marketed as medical for heat easement, but here he is without such conveniences and has been left no way to improvise a substitute. His ass and thighs are covered with slick, it all but gushes over his skin and soaks the sheets damp.

There’s an urgency to this that his heats have never had before. Sequestered at home with no-one but relatives allowed near endurance had been the only option, but now his heat heightened senses catch the scents of nearby alphas and he knows that there could be satisfaction if only they drew near enough to identify his own scent and found it appealing enough to break through the locked doors and take care of him. This deep in heat, the nagging voice that tells him he doesn’t want any passing alpha is nothing more than a faint whisper, insignificant in the face of how badly he some satisfaction for the craving burning inside him.

Despite his knowledge that it’ll only leave him unsatisfied, George’s hips are rolling against the mattress when the door swings open. With one less barrier between him and the world he’s hit by a wave of scent, alpha musk and a faint thread of want that he knows he can heighten to a need to match his own if only he can please the nearby alpha right.

He knows this scent, knows it’s the alpha he’s chosen to see him through this but more than that he knows how much better this can be. Speirs is a true embodiment of everything an alpha should be: in command of a whole company; fearsome to his enemies; and, most importantly, dutiful enough to care for each of the omegas beneath him when they needed him, Lipton in his illness and now George in his heat.

“Alpha...” he whines. He knows Speirs isn’t _his_ alpha, there’s no pleasant hum of a bond to ease him, but at this point any alpha would do he just needs to be knotted and this one even smells good, virile and protective in a way that George is only ever capable of picking out with his heat-heightened senses but still recognises well enough for instinct to have him spreading his legs so far his thighs burn with it in invitation to an alpha who could more than satisfy him.

The growl he hears tell him that his actions have been noticed but the real proof is in the arousal George can smell coming off Speirs in waves as he approaches, alpha musk mixing with the almost sickly-sweet scent of George’s own heat thick in the air creating an imitation of the joining he needs.

It’s a preview of exactly what he wants and for a moment he relishes the sudden feeling of the heavy weight of the alpha pressing down on him and George spreads his legs eagerly, shifting his hips in an attempt to present himself properly, because finally _finally_ he’s going to get what he needs.

Or not.

Instead of the rustle of clothes being removed and the sharp push of being filled by something better than his fingers, George feels the press of a cold, damp cloth against the small of his back.

It’s not what he wants and yet he shivers as the way it cuts through the heat and that shiver turns to a groan as the cloth is then dragged up his spine, leaving a cool trail of goosebumps behind as it chases the burning from under his skin.

As _Speirs_ chases the burning.

George’s heat won’t break without a knot, but it feels less like it’s consuming him as he’s gently cooled with steady stokes that aren’t what he wants, aren’t what he needs, but feel blissfully good despite that.

He still wants more, but he can tell that the reason this isn’t progressing is no fault of his. George can feel Speirs’ hardness brushing up against him through the not thick-enough canvas of his trousers as Speirs wipes away the sweat, but still the man denies them both the satisfaction, even when George is dripping with need, utterly open for the taking.

And George suspects he knows why.

Speirs is Lipton’s, even if the claim isn’t official yet, and Speirs is too smart to risk his chances with the omega he wants for a bondmate simply for the sake of getting his knot wet.

Speirs’ loyalty and restraint are both commendable and George knows that he and Lip will be good together, but George’s family is traditional about secondary sex and that means George also knows plenty about the old ways. Once, common practise had been that an alpha could take as many mates as they could support and it would have been accepted, no, expected that a man like Speirs would have several omegas - it guaranteed strong bloodlines and ensured that no omega went unsupported. But that had fallen out of favour a few centuries ago, after a small number of alphas fell into the habit of laying claim to far more omegas than they could handle in an attempt to flaunt their wealth and virility, while other bloodlines died out because the omegas of their communities were snatched away. There’d been a push for one-alpha-one-omega relationships to restore balance, with a few allowances made for betas, and that had become the new normal.

But George imagines a world where they aren’t so confined, where an alpha like Speirs could live up to his potential. He could take his spoils of war, not that Speirs hasn’t been making a valiant attempt at upholding that tradition despite the army’s disapproval, buy a house and then court and claim omegas as he saw fit, and George thinks he could be quite satisfied sharing his alpha with an omega like Lipton, raising their pups alongside each other in one brood. He’s never thought of himself as an omega’s omega, George has always fantasized about knotting and dreamed of bonding and has no intention of giving those aspirations up, but if he had a fellow omega with whom he was sharing an alpha... well, maybe George wouldn’t be adverse to doing a little more than sharing...

Maybe that’s impossible but that doesn’t mean he can’t think about Speirs and Lip together, how Speirs would surely take care of Lip, have all the necessary supplies by the bedside so he could tend to Lip while he was on Speirs knot, keep him safe and comfortable so he could go the distance, being surrounded by pleased omega keeping Speirs’ knot hard for hours as their pheremones created a feedback loop of perfect pleasure.

Even in the mess of war Speirs has done well to make things comfortable for George, found a room free of disturbing scents and equipped with locked doors to keep any passing alphas away, and now this, this soothing away of the heat that George can’t have satisfied, shows a care beyond what so many alphas could ever offer. Speirs and his omega would never suffer like in the cautionary tales George has heard about foolish alphas rushing into heat couplings and then being ill equipped to see to their omegas other needs, not even remembering to supply food and water so that their omegas were either forced to either endude the knotting in discomfort or face the pain of an alpha pulling out prematurely in order to see to considerations they’d failed to make before.

No, Speirs would be perfect, provide every satisfaction and last out the duration of the heat and the thought is enough for George to forgive the way he’s being denied that satisfaction now. A cool cloth wiping the sweat from his skin might not be what he craves, but it’s more comfort than he’d ever expected in war and so he keens when Speirs finally withdraws.

“Rest,” he says, and it’s clearly an order, half-growled as he retreats.

George rolls over and watches him, lust marked clearly in the darkness of his eyes and the flush in his cheeks but all of that comes second to the stiff control with which he holds himself and now he isn’t burning up so badly George can remember that the command Speirs has over himself was the reason that George approached him for such a dangerously intimate duty.

He wants Speirs, George’s heat demands to be satisfied, but seeing him wound so tight and still resisting temptation is a sharp reminder that George also needs to rise above his instincts. Speirs is Lip’s alpha, that it’s unofficial is unimportant and so he grabs at the damp cloth Speirs has left behind and drapes it across his throat in a meagre attempt to keep cool and muffle his scent.

He nods, a vague and belated response to Speirs command, but he can’t help but wonder that Speirs has come back so fast, or has George just lost his sense of time so badly?

Either way, Speirs retreats, and George’s own sloppy application of the damp cloth is enough to keep him from hitting the highest burning point of heat again. By the time the sun rises the next morning he can already feel it fading, even faster than usual so at least the underpowered army suppressants are good for something.

Speirs’ scarf still rests on the bed in place of a pillow. This will all be over soon and George isn’t sure if he should give it back or not. It’s Speirs’ property and it was forgotten not a gift, but George has spent the past day with it pressed close in order to breathe in every trace of Speirs that clung to it and now it’s thick with George’s own scent and he’s not sure Speirs wants a scarf that smells overwhelmingly of George’s heat.

He’ll leave it in the room, he decides, and Speirs can decided if he wants to keep it or not.


End file.
